Note: This is a guest post from Michael Boyette from the Top Dog Sales Blog. Want to contribute your own guest post? Let us know!

Trigger events are the silver bullets in sales, because they allow you to get in front of the right person at exactly the right time. Sales coach and author Craig Elias points to three types of trigger events. Each trigger signals a high probability that the company will eventually purchase new goods and services.

Trigger #1: Executive moves

Executives are typically hired to make a difference. And since top executive tenure tends to be short, they want to make their mark fast.

They need to buy solutions and services in order to make that happen. And they need something new, because if the old stuff was working they wouldn't be there. It's also easier for new management to change suppliers. They can say that a previous vendor was a poor choice made by someone before them.

Trigger #2: New funding

Studies show that companies with new funding are up to eight times more likely to buy services than comparable companies that haven't had a similar funding event.

Funding is meant to drive growth, which means purchasing new solutions and services to help with sales, marketing, product development, operations, and so forth.

It's not just that they're flush. Many times management is under pressure to spend new money quickly to show investors they're doing everything possible to succeed.

Trigger #3: Launches

New products create demand for supporting products and services that fuel sales growth for the new product, such as marketing services, sales training, and e-commerce.

New products often spawn the departure of personnel and other changes as people move on to newer projects. Product launches therefore create secondary trigger events, such as new funding and executive changes.

Hitting the Trifecta

Corporate acquisitions, by their very nature, involve changes in executive roles, which often ripple throughout the entire organization.

They also involve changes in funding, with some groups doing better under the new regime and some doing worse. Like any other major organizational change, a merger creates multiple trigger events, each of which can be leveraged into a sales opportunity.

How to Capitalize

Use something as simple as Google Alerts to search for product launches or LinkedIn to follow changes in executive staffing.

One Sales 2.0 application for this purpose is iSell, from OneSource, which informs you of the trigger event, and also provides context, such as information about the industry and the prospect's competitors. The application provides you with enough information to have a relevant conversation the first time you talk to the prospect in response to the trigger.

Michael Boyette is the managing editor of Selling Essentials newsletter and editor of the Top Sales Dog blog (http://rapidlearninginstitute.com/top-sales-dog). He's also managed marketing/PR programs for DuPont, Tyco Electronics, and US Healthcare, among others. In addition, he's authored ten books on a variety of subjects for such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Dutton and Holt. Contact Michael via email at [email protected].